For the Cure of the prostate cancer good results can be achieved even without resorting to pharmacological castration.
Treatment with a new generation anti-androgen drug, enzalutamideassociated with androgen deprivation therapy (so-called pharmacological castration), reduces the risk of metastasis or death by 58% in patients with prostate cancer at high risk of recurrence.
But this result, albeit to a lesser extent, can also be achieved without resorting to pharmacological castration.
Prostate cancer, the study presented in Chicago
It is one of the data that emerges from the phase III Embark study, presented at the Congress of the American Urological Association, which closed yesterday in Chicago.
“After primary treatment, two out of three patients recover, but it is estimated that, ten years after receiving ‘definitive’ therapy for prostate cancer, about one third undergoes biochemical recurrence with progressively increasing PSA levels. These men are more likely to die of cancer,” he explains Ugo De Giorgidirector of Clinical and Experimental Oncology of the IRCCS Romagna Institute for the Study of Tumors ‘Dino Amadori’ of Meldola, who participated in the work.
The study involved 1,068 patients with these characteristics, showing a 58% reduction in the likelihood of the disease spreading to other parts of the body, a 93% improvement in time to PSA progression and a 64% improvement in time to use a new anticancer therapy.
The research also showed important results with enzatulamide alone, with improvements of 37%, 67% and 46%, respectively.
The studio, second From George, demonstrates for the first time that “pharmacological castration” can be avoided altogether, which until now has been the standard of care for these patients. This treatment “guarantees long-lasting remissions but has heavy side effects,” explains the oncologist. Precisely for this reason “about 10%, especially young people, refuse this option or try to delay it as long as possible. But deferring treatment can lead to rapid progression of the tumor and a worse prognosis”, concludes De Giorgi.